Electronic Books Seek A New Opportunity
By Nicolai Pogrebnyakov
Post-Doctoral Researcher, IESE
February 2009
The new eBooks are still not ready to replace traditional books, but time is
working in their favor. While purchases of traditional books seem to be in
continuous decline, the publishing sector is showing renewed interest – not
without certain fear and trepidation – in the possibilities of digital technology.
With their potential for on-line distribution cost savings and enhanced mobility,
eBooks appear to be emerging as a way of reactivating this market.
Although interest in electronic books has experienced periodic resurgences,
technological immaturity has continuously frustrated initial expectations. Up to
now, forecasts have always turned out to be too optimistic. In addition, the actors
involved have turned a deaf ear to all such projects until more propitious times
are upon us. The most credible signals that these times are drawing near
occurred a little over two years ago when Sony launched its “Reader” reading
device, which sold 300,000 units in the United States alone. More importantly,
there was a total run on the market last Christmas for Kindle, an electronic book-
reading device promoted by Amazon.
Now, Amazon’s virtual bookstore run by Jeff Bezos has just presented its 2.0
version, which conforms to recent progress in this technology. The new model
will be available in the United States at the end of this month for a price of 349
dollars. Its latest features include an electric ink screen that reduces readers’
eyestrain and a battery that lasts up to five days without a charge. Another key
feature involves a wireless connection that allows books to be downloaded from
the Internet via 3G networks without having to use a computer. It has also
improved the way readers turn pages as well as its overall capacity, now a full 2
gigabytes. This allows for storage of approximately 1500 tit